Europe plans for bolder future post-Ukraine

Monday saw the climax of years of consultation on Europe’s future, yet it is events more recently in Ukraine that are catalysing the political and economic direction of the continent.

On Monday, a cross-section of Europe’s top brass, including French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, spoke about the need for the bloc to reset given the challenges on its Eastern doorsteps. Von der Leyen said that “the unthinkable (major war) has returned to our continent” and stressed that this will shape the medium- to long-term future of the bloc post-Ukraine, post-pandemic, and post-Brexit.

While the full implications of the Ukraine crisis may not be clear for years, what is already evident is that the current system of EU institutions and processes need reform to address the fallout. And the implications are key not only for EU foreign and security policy, but also its broader agriculture, migration, energy and industrial policies.

Over 300 reform proposals were considered at Monday’s conference, including re-thinking the bloc’s practice of needing a unanimous vote to pass measures. A growing number of European leaders, including Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, have called for a more “pragmatic federalism” which would see member states lose their ability to veto decisions agreed by a super majority in a move toward qualified majority voting.

Von der Leyen, plus key national leaders like Macron, are adamant that change is needed and that “standing still is falling back”. While reform has long been in the making, including following Brexit and the pandemic, it is the invasion of Ukraine that is having the most dramatic consequence on EU policy.

This was highlighted by one of the big ideas proposed on Monday by Macron who asserted that the EU, “given its level of integration and ambition, cannot be the only way to structure the European continent”.  He favours a new type of “political European community” that would allow countries which may join in the future, like Ukraine, and others including the United Kingdom which have left it, to deliver “European core values” in areas such as energy, transport, and investment of infrastructure.

Meanwhile, von der Leyen emphasised how the bloc now needs to transform into a more muscular global actor. This is not a new idea for her given her previous support for an EU army back in the day when she was a defence minister in Angela Merkel’s German government.

However, she stressed how much the Ukraine conflict is “fundamentally challenging” Europe’s peace architecture. What began seven decades ago as a trade bloc binding former warring nations together, is today an economic heavyweight with potentially strong potential in broader foreign affairs.

To be sure, the bloc still has a long way to becoming the strategically autonomous Goliath championed by some in Europe. But it may have crossed a Rubicon in 2022, including financing for the first time the purchase of lethal weapons for a third party country (Ukraine), and imposing wider unprecedented sanctions on Russia following its invasion.

This underlines why the Ukraine crisis has the potential to dramatically reshape the EU. Decisions taken in coming weeks could be momentous and will help define the longer-term economic and political character of the bloc for many years, if not decades, to come.